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Arranging Tangerines Episode 6 - A Conversation with Alisa Yang Part 2
6 Plays3 years ago
In the second part of our interview with Alisa Yang, we take a deeper dive into her practice through a discussion of the value of care labor, the connection between durational projects and rest, the similarities between collage and filmmaking, the human condition of trying to make sense of what comes before and after, and the changing landscape for feminist artists after the #metoo movement.
Alisa Yang is an antidisciplinary artist and independent filmmaker with a research based practice exploring alternative ways art can be a currency for cake. Centering the body as a site of geopolitical and social conditionings, she works across video, installation, and situational specific projects in orienting oneself towards social change. Her films focus on the experiences of Asian women navigating cultural identity and generational trauma, mining personal narratives with humor and vulnerability.
Yang earned her BFA from Art Center of Design in 2009 and MFA at the University of Michigan in 2016. Her work has been exhibited and screened internationally in places like MoMAPS1, Aesthetica Art Prize, New Mexico Museum of Art, and Beijing’s Art Nova 100 with reviews in LA Times, Hyperallergic, and Huffington Post. Recipient of fellowships like Yaddo, Uniondoc Summer Lab, Artpace San Antonio, and Vermont Studios. Her awards include the 2018 Special Arte Laguna Prize, Best Regional Filmmaker at 2017 Ann Arbor Film Festival, and the 2017 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival Golden Reel Awards for Short Documentary.
Links:
Chronic Stillness: Wieteke Heldens & Alisa Yang at Lydian Stater
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Arranging Tangerines Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to Arranging Tangerines presented by Lady and Stain.
00:00:05
Speaker
Conversations with contemporary artists, curators, and thinkers about the intersection of art, technology, and commerce.
00:00:10
Speaker
Your hosts are me, Alessandro Silver, and Joseph Wilcox.
00:00:13
Speaker
I don't know what to do.
00:00:15
Speaker
I don't know what to say.
00:00:17
Speaker
I just know I don't want to be like you.
00:00:20
Speaker
I don't know what to do.
00:00:22
Speaker
I don't know what to say.
00:00:24
Speaker
All right.
00:00:24
Speaker
Okay, we're back.
00:00:26
Speaker
We are back.
00:00:28
Speaker
That's the sweet sound of a... What is that?
Humorous Take on Sponsorship
00:00:32
Speaker
Peak Organic Brewing.
00:00:33
Speaker
It's a hazy, dry-hopped pale ale.
00:00:35
Speaker
It's actually pretty good.
00:00:36
Speaker
They're one of our sponsors?
00:00:37
Speaker
Yep.
00:00:38
Speaker
Not one of our sponsors?
00:00:39
Speaker
Well, they could be if they reach out to us.
00:00:43
Speaker
I wonder if we're good enough to get sponsors yet.
00:00:47
Speaker
Why not?
00:00:47
Speaker
I'm sure we could get like...
Activism Through 'Wish You Were Here'
00:00:49
Speaker
one some kind of crypto whatever joe's joe's uh frame shop flavor of the month crypto company that just got like a hundred thousand billion dollars that's true and they don't know what to do with the money yeah we'll take that um i wanted to so you were on this thread yeah you had mentioned wish you were here uh-huh which is the most recent project you've finished right yes good place to start and it kind of encompasses activism and
00:01:19
Speaker
care and gifts yeah uh so that was um last uh november i think the show was um it was before vaccination so uh the premise was partially that i don't think anyone will attend the show so just wondering what is the point of having a physical show um
00:01:47
Speaker
And it was also voting time.
00:01:50
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:01:52
Speaker
And energy was tense.
00:01:54
Speaker
People don't have time to grieve.
00:01:58
Speaker
And what are some of the things that I care about?
00:02:02
Speaker
And I can transform that into art.
Crafting Care Packages for BIPOC Communities
00:02:06
Speaker
And so the idea was that I was going to make 300 care gifts that people can go to the show and grab or they can just be on the curbside and ask for it or we can mail it to you.
00:02:20
Speaker
I wanted to prioritize BIPOC folks, but there wasn't... I kept going and it's like, okay, if you're white, maybe not pick up a gift.
00:02:28
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:29
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:32
Speaker
Have you found any strategies that work?
00:02:35
Speaker
Because I like to, we kind of like to prioritize this as well.
00:02:40
Speaker
BIPOC as well.
00:02:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:41
Speaker
Because it's like, but I don't know, to be overt or it's like, how do you do it where you're just kind of like.
00:02:47
Speaker
Well, like in the statement that I had and also in the letter that I wrote that is included in each of these gift boxes where we talk about how Vipug are disproportionately impacted and therefore they need the most care.
00:03:05
Speaker
And the way at the time, like a lot of folks who are saying, oh, this is such a great time to learn how to bake and...
00:03:14
Speaker
Do you have the resources exactly and that that can feel that just that doesn't feel right for a lot of BIPOCs We don't have those kind of resources or access or there they have folks who are dying or died So it's just that sensitivity that wasn't there was sort of what prompted me to do this project and and one of the things
00:03:36
Speaker
that I have learned from being sick was that it really forced me to rest and I didn't really realize I didn't know how to rest.
Rest and Creative Care Items
00:03:46
Speaker
Like, you're not resting if you're just laying and worrying about all the things that you should be doing.
00:03:52
Speaker
And what does it mean to really be in your body?
00:03:55
Speaker
And what does it mean to be in your body and you can't leave the house?
00:03:59
Speaker
And for the first time in a way, like now everyone had a little bit of a flavor what it's like to be housebound.
00:04:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:10
Speaker
And so these are some lessons that I learned.
00:04:14
Speaker
wanted to give as gifts for things that help me learn how to rest.
00:04:18
Speaker
So there's like an herbal blend of tea that specifically was chosen to calm your central nervous system with like non-caffeinated soothes you.
00:04:33
Speaker
It's quite tasty.
00:04:34
Speaker
And then I had made a essential oil spray that also function as a disinfectant.
00:04:44
Speaker
with enough alcohol content and what else did I have an eye mask so you can nap but I wanted a nice eye mask like a flimsy one and also I had a guided yoga nidra meditation which is just like a deep relaxation technique that all you do is lay down and you're trying to nap
00:05:06
Speaker
And that was chill.
00:05:10
Speaker
It's a small gesture that I hope that whoever that receives it, you know, they see the box and be like, okay, I can take like 15 minutes breaks.
00:05:21
Speaker
How was it distributed?
00:05:23
Speaker
People could just whoever who you
Designing a Tranquil Art Space
00:05:26
Speaker
can get it by going to the show and grabbing it.
00:05:29
Speaker
And it was stacked up like an altar and I had surrounded it with plants.
00:05:34
Speaker
It was a huge space that you walk in and it's completely empty.
00:05:37
Speaker
And it's also under a skylight where I had a chromatic film covered.
00:05:42
Speaker
So the color changes throughout the day.
00:05:45
Speaker
It could be from magenta to purple to blues.
00:05:50
Speaker
And the feeling I wanted to get was I remember going to Buddhist temple with my grandmother when I was young.
00:05:58
Speaker
And it was also like a giant empty space and you just go there and chill and meditate.
00:06:03
Speaker
And it was so peaceful that I wanted to recreate that feeling when you go into an art space instead of looking at art, you're kind of asked to.
00:06:15
Speaker
Go inside.
00:06:17
Speaker
And I also like the idea of experiencing art in your own private space.
00:06:21
Speaker
So if this gift could be picked up on a curbside or mailed to you.
00:06:28
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:06:30
Speaker
Yeah, it was really fun to see that project when you started posting about it because prior to that, I knew you mostly as a filmmaker.
00:06:40
Speaker
And I know there was a film component to this, but this is like, it's kind of like the first kind of like community-based artwork or kind of like social practice artwork
ASMR Filming and Feminism Discussion
00:06:50
Speaker
that you've done.
00:06:50
Speaker
Is that true?
00:06:51
Speaker
Definitely.
00:06:51
Speaker
Definitely.
00:06:52
Speaker
Yeah, the film component was more in the background.
00:06:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:57
Speaker
But I did want it to have like an ASMR effect.
00:07:01
Speaker
It's basically just filming me packing this stuff.
00:07:05
Speaker
Yeah, I actually, one of the questions I had was how long is that film?
00:07:11
Speaker
Um, I want to say like 15 minutes or something, maybe.
00:07:14
Speaker
Okay.
00:07:15
Speaker
So there's just a lot of clinking and pouring and stacking.
00:07:18
Speaker
So it's really arithmetic.
00:07:20
Speaker
And when you walk into space, all you hear is that and it just feels, um, it's a bit of, I wanted to imprint like your ghost, my ghost into the space and into the objects I'm making.
00:07:30
Speaker
So you see that I've made all this stuff.
00:07:32
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:07:34
Speaker
So it's not – you didn't document the entire production of all of the – No, no.
00:07:39
Speaker
That would be too long.
00:07:40
Speaker
It would be really long, right?
00:07:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:41
Speaker
Okay.
00:07:43
Speaker
I mean, I love the idea of, like, the performance of it becoming a film piece that's also documenting an actual thing that you're doing, but probably it was, like –
00:07:55
Speaker
You were performing a little bit for the camera.
00:07:57
Speaker
Oh, yeah, totally.
00:07:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:59
Speaker
So it's like this like kind of double meaning that like creates just like another extension of the work that can live beyond the action of giving these care packages.
00:08:09
Speaker
Yeah, for sure.
00:08:10
Speaker
I think I remember it was one person who...
00:08:12
Speaker
had had left a comment where it's like oh i'm not really sure about this video portion from like a feminist critique perspective in terms of are you feminizing labor but at the same time i want to ask well or uh what is the value you place in care labor yeah if you look down upon it and that's the reflection on you i think it's
00:08:37
Speaker
um so that was a conversation i wasn't expecting to have but i was also like oh that's another side of it yeah that's that's not something i thought of when i when i envisioned the film work either is like it's a documentation of labor of domestic labor or care labor yeah yeah that's interesting and what portion like this gesture also is it something along the lines of
00:09:06
Speaker
not you wish to have received something like this but is there something to that effect where you i guess you wish it happened more often or people would totally like step up and just do this kind of thing for others like is this a reciprocal thing is this like something like like personally i'm very bad about accepting help or and asking for help but i but i like giving it i like
00:09:32
Speaker
that that makes me really happy uh scientifically proven by the way yeah yeah yeah it's true you get more serotonin and stuff and during research um uh this guy marcel maus he was a french socialist and he had looked into um economies before money was introduced and he wrote he was doing this research between world war um
00:10:00
Speaker
It was pretty apocalyptic time and it feels really similar like what we're going through too.
Gift Economies versus Transactional Economies
00:10:07
Speaker
And he was looking at basically all the ancient culture function on gift economy and gifts were given to build bonds and through different communities.
00:10:21
Speaker
But there wasn't a separation between one's self-interest and the other.
00:10:27
Speaker
so it was less transactional and the fact that it's hard for us to imagine that is something that i wanted to kind of investigate a little more in that project so giving this gift to people like like some anonymous person who lives in san atonio
00:10:48
Speaker
What does it mean to give you something that helped me to help you?
00:10:55
Speaker
And also, it has to be consensual, right?
00:10:57
Speaker
So like this person has to want this gift.
00:11:00
Speaker
Otherwise, it's imposing.
00:11:01
Speaker
Or need.
00:11:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:03
Speaker
Or charity or whatever.
00:11:06
Speaker
I think every podcast I say something about the Dominican Republic, and I'll do this one for this one.
00:11:11
Speaker
There's no... I mean, there probably are, but there's very little homeless people in the Dominican Republic.
00:11:18
Speaker
And it's because people just can't accept the fact that somebody would not...
00:11:23
Speaker
have a place to either stay or have food.
00:11:26
Speaker
So it's very common to take in somebody and say, hey, just we have very little, but we'll just make do what we have.
00:11:34
Speaker
And they just share.
00:11:35
Speaker
And it's awesome.
00:11:37
Speaker
It's a possibility, you know?
00:11:39
Speaker
Yeah, we have so much in this country so much so much.
00:11:42
Speaker
And we just we do so little as far as that kind of sharing mentality is concerned.
00:11:48
Speaker
I mean, I think there's research about poor folks are much more willing to share what they have than rich folks.
00:11:58
Speaker
And they're happier.
00:11:59
Speaker
And probably happier.
00:12:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:02
Speaker
But like that's like, you know, food and resources and all of those things are more commonly shared by people who live in poverty because there's this expectation that at some point,
00:12:16
Speaker
you'll need you'll need to share somebody else's things right because you're me right right yeah whereas we we do a really good job of separating ourselves and that's not me or we put whether it's walls or we live in situations where we don't come into contact with certain populations and it's like you never think about that other the other person so you don't think about that situation being yourself
00:12:40
Speaker
Exactly.
Challenges of American Individualism
00:12:41
Speaker
And on the other side of this individualism we have in America, we're also expected to do everything ourselves.
00:12:50
Speaker
And asking for help is some kind of defect in your character.
00:12:55
Speaker
And that will exhaust you.
00:12:58
Speaker
Oh, God.
00:12:59
Speaker
I mean, I don't even...
00:13:02
Speaker
I mean, the whole welfare system in our country is just like, it's just built for failure.
00:13:07
Speaker
It's supposed to give you a head or a leg up, but then there's all these stipulations.
00:13:11
Speaker
If you do this thing and if you have a job or like any little thing you'd kind of do to kind of improve and then they take away the safety net and then you're back down to it's awful.
00:13:23
Speaker
It is awful.
00:13:24
Speaker
Um, yeah.
00:13:29
Speaker
Um, so I, I do have a question, uh, maybe it's not totally connected, but, uh, I mean, no, I think it is a little bit in terms of talking about gift giving and like taking care of your people, which is your, your kind of nomadic existence that you've had for the last five years.
00:13:52
Speaker
Yeah, I've been the recipient of a lot of people's kindness.
00:13:57
Speaker
And I'm wondering, I mean, so the thing I wrote here was preferred or required, which is probably two ends of a spectrum and it's probably somewhere in the middle.
Balancing Travel and Home Desires
00:14:06
Speaker
But like, you know, do you do you do this because you have to or do you do it because you appreciate it?
00:14:14
Speaker
what happens when you live in a nomadic existence or i'm just interested in kind of your it's a little bit of both i think part of it like can't be separated from how i grew up which is i was moving around a lot and living with different families and different places and between taiwan and america and by the time i was in high school i got to high school i've already gone to 12 schools so the change of environment is something i'm
00:14:44
Speaker
You know what they say about like kind of trauma bonding because it feels familiar.
00:14:50
Speaker
It feels it's a little bit of that.
00:14:52
Speaker
But at the same time, I also really love traveling.
00:14:55
Speaker
I like being in different places and being in different cultures and kind of decentering myself because once you leave America, you realize that.
00:15:06
Speaker
how the way we think everything revolves around us.
00:15:09
Speaker
Everybody knows about us, but when we go to Kazakhstan, what do we know about Kazakhstan?
00:15:14
Speaker
They know everything about us and you feel like, well, this is a good way of incorporating yourself globally, especially where the emphasis of this global culture is...
00:15:26
Speaker
the jam um yeah but at the same time like yeah of course i would love to have a home base if i could afford to do so yeah yeah i get that um yeah and i imagine you mentioned that it's hard sometimes to like accept help yeah but it also feels good when you do right um yeah yeah i mean at least i think i think it does because i think that i fall into that too it's like
00:15:53
Speaker
I want to do everything on my own.
00:15:56
Speaker
But when you do have somebody help you, it is nice.
00:15:59
Speaker
It is nice.
00:16:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:00
Speaker
It is nice.
00:16:01
Speaker
Cool.
00:16:07
Speaker
I was just in my notes.
00:16:09
Speaker
I have that quote about rest.
00:16:14
Speaker
I don't know if you want to read it.
00:16:16
Speaker
Oh.
00:16:16
Speaker
It's really cool.
00:16:17
Speaker
Is it from the Nat Ministry?
00:16:19
Speaker
Because she's awesome.
00:16:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:23
Speaker
Trisha Hersey.
00:16:25
Speaker
I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly.
00:16:29
Speaker
She is a nap bishop in her nap ministry that she's been preaching for the last decade.
00:16:36
Speaker
So the quote is, rest is our foundation for a liberated world.
00:16:41
Speaker
Care is how we will shift culture.
00:16:43
Speaker
Rest today, make space for others to rest today, and we will rest.
00:16:50
Speaker
That's beautiful.
00:16:52
Speaker
I mean, the whole idea of rest, it presupposes a lot of things, right?
00:16:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:57
Speaker
You have to have a place to rest.
00:17:00
Speaker
You have to have whatever.
00:17:01
Speaker
You have to have food to eat to be able to rest because you're not looking for the thing, right?
00:17:08
Speaker
It's a lot of... That's a gift.
00:17:11
Speaker
it is a gift yeah she like finding her work has been so huge for me and learning how to rest and allowing myself to rest and also thinking about it in terms of her work which is rest is primarily for black liberation and rest as reparation and resistance to capitalism
00:17:38
Speaker
and and kind of really looking at our relationship to labor and how to detox from that uh you just sorry you got something oh no you're gonna hit on something in like
00:17:54
Speaker
Well, she just posted a thing on Instagram today that was hilarious, which was like performance piece 2020 to 2022.
00:18:02
Speaker
I can't remember what the – it was like not doing anything or something, right?
00:18:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:08
Speaker
Which I thought was amazing.
00:18:11
Speaker
And also I know that like obviously rest and taking the time as part of your practice is –
00:18:19
Speaker
And I'm wondering, like, but I also know that you, like, are hustling all the time and, like, doing grants and, like, everything.
00:18:27
Speaker
I look like I'm doing it.
00:18:29
Speaker
Well, like, you know, like, because you have to do something to continue.
00:18:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:33
Speaker
And, like, you got to find your next housing and all these kinds
Shiite Ching's Art of Doing Nothing for Rest
00:18:35
Speaker
of things.
00:18:35
Speaker
And so I wonder, I'm just, like, wondering about, like,
00:18:41
Speaker
like not producing in relation to stress because when I'm not producing, I get stressed out.
00:18:48
Speaker
And I wonder if that's a part of your, your life.
00:18:56
Speaker
And like how you deal with that, like how you deal with not doing anything.
00:19:00
Speaker
I'm actively learning.
00:19:02
Speaker
There's this artist, Shiite Ching, Taiwanese performance artist.
00:19:07
Speaker
And one of, he does a lot of long durational works.
00:19:10
Speaker
And one of his, is I think from the age, it's a 13 year project from starting when he was 36, is to just do nothing.
00:19:20
Speaker
And that was his art.
00:19:23
Speaker
Is he the one that he's also like the he's most known for like taking a photo of every hour on a clock for a year?
00:19:30
Speaker
Yeah, and he had And he's got a he's got a collaborator too that he did Yeah performances with is that yes.
00:19:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:38
Speaker
Yeah one year.
00:19:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:42
Speaker
Yeah What's her name?
00:19:43
Speaker
No, I should know I should know too.
00:19:45
Speaker
I just printed it out for the for the board.
00:19:47
Speaker
It spoke at a
00:19:50
Speaker
Oh, really?
00:19:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:50
Speaker
When we were there?
00:19:51
Speaker
No.
00:19:52
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:19:53
Speaker
He's one of Ben Slote's friends.
00:19:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:55
Speaker
No, he's fantastic.
00:19:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:57
Speaker
I mean, it's just like living outside for a year.
00:20:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:01
Speaker
Living inside for one year.
00:20:03
Speaker
And then, like you said, getting to the point where the art is just like, I'm not doing anything.
00:20:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:07
Speaker
And doing nothing.
00:20:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:10
Speaker
Not how to pass time, but just the passing of time.
00:20:13
Speaker
Wow.
00:20:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:15
Speaker
But I also liked, I mean, you mentioned earlier your 10,000 sunsets as being this kind of thread that you can always do that doesn't take a lot of time out of your day that if you are in a period of non-producing or whatever you want to call it, you can still kind of like... Accumulate.
00:20:33
Speaker
Right.
00:20:33
Speaker
You can still have that thing that continues your career trajectory or whatever because that's important to your future as an artist and as a...
00:20:43
Speaker
person who gets opportunities and all those things that we wish didn't exist but they do because they're kind of forced upon us i guess yeah it's like the gap in your cv yeah and so i'm like well i've been doing this since 2018 it'll be done when i die right so you always have a 2018 to present no matter what yeah
00:21:05
Speaker
I have a huge gap in my CV and it's called a nine-year-old little girl.
00:21:11
Speaker
You really do.
00:21:11
Speaker
Your gap is, yeah.
00:21:13
Speaker
But that's, you should see her.
00:21:14
Speaker
She's amazing.
00:21:15
Speaker
Oh, I believe it.
00:21:17
Speaker
If you come Sunday.
00:21:19
Speaker
So in contrast, and speaking about labor, your project Please Come Again.
00:21:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:29
Speaker
I mean, it's a complete contrast as far as like you're kind of pointing out certain aspects.
00:21:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:34
Speaker
Did you get to see that too?
00:21:36
Speaker
I didn't get to see that.
00:21:36
Speaker
I didn't find it.
00:21:37
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:21:38
Speaker
I've seen it because we had like a film night when we were.
00:21:41
Speaker
I just saw the preview.
00:21:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:42
Speaker
It would look really interesting.
00:21:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:44
Speaker
Can you talk about that project?
00:21:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:49
Speaker
So, one of the things I've always wanted to go check out when I was younger was to go check out Love Hotels in Japan.
00:21:58
Speaker
And I just love themed spaces.
00:22:02
Speaker
And I love the subculture of BDSM and...
00:22:06
Speaker
And I also love the idea of having a placeholder space to just chill and do whatever.
00:22:13
Speaker
Like when you go there, you can buy time that they call it rest.
00:22:18
Speaker
Rest would be one to two hours.
00:22:21
Speaker
Stay would be overnight.
00:22:24
Speaker
But while I was there and kind of researching how the aesthetics of these spaces are decided...
00:22:32
Speaker
I sort of learned about, like, the history of the love hotels, like, how it's been around since the Edo period.
00:22:38
Speaker
And because of, like, the size of the housing in urban areas in Japan, you're often sharing a space with someone.
00:22:49
Speaker
Or you don't have that privacy to have sex.
00:22:53
Speaker
And oftentimes, you know, like, in your, in the emojis, you have, like, a hotel with a heart.
00:22:59
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:23:00
Speaker
So that is probably one of the most misinterpreted emojis.
00:23:05
Speaker
When you want to hook up with someone, you just send them like, hey, do you want to go to a love hotel?
00:23:11
Speaker
I don't know this emoji.
00:23:12
Speaker
I've sent that to you.
00:23:15
Speaker
I hope you didn't misconstrue.
00:23:17
Speaker
You use emojis wrong all the time.
00:23:19
Speaker
I do.
00:23:19
Speaker
I don't know what they mean.
00:23:22
Speaker
The one with the H on it?
00:23:24
Speaker
No, it's a heart shape.
00:23:25
Speaker
There's a heart in there.
00:23:27
Speaker
Okay, interesting.
00:23:28
Speaker
yeah i need to i need to figure out more about this emoji yeah so what would used to be like a seedy place where bad things happen um because because guys will like drag their girlfriend wives or whoever they're cheating with um or a prostitute which also happens as well um
00:23:49
Speaker
The men usually decide where to go.
00:23:51
Speaker
So the designs were catered to men.
00:23:54
Speaker
So those that means like maybe the bathroom has glass.
00:23:58
Speaker
You can see the person doing their business, mirrors on the wall, like things like that that tends to make women uncomfortable.
00:24:06
Speaker
They were really popular.
00:24:08
Speaker
And the shift came when women are taking more agency and be like, no, you want to fuck me.
00:24:12
Speaker
I want to choose a place that makes me more comfortable.
00:24:15
Speaker
So then it becomes like about the amenities like, oh, we have face masks.
00:24:20
Speaker
This is the brand of shampoo we have.
00:24:23
Speaker
The food.
00:24:25
Speaker
Even the porn is different.
00:24:27
Speaker
Like the different kinds of hotel will cater to different tastes.
00:24:30
Speaker
And sometimes it's like advertisement.
00:24:32
Speaker
Oh, you can't afford to take your girlfriend to Paris.
00:24:34
Speaker
We have a Paris room.
00:24:35
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:24:36
Speaker
Or you can just go hang out and do karaoke with your friends.
00:24:39
Speaker
And the other thing is that because in a very conforming culture, you have very specific roles in different spaces, including domestic spaces.
00:24:49
Speaker
So Love Hotel kind of is a place where you can escape all that.
00:24:53
Speaker
And a lot of it because like the myth, the sizing, the American culture as like this individual like freedom of expression.
00:25:00
Speaker
So there's also a lot of appropriation American culture that was really interesting.
00:25:04
Speaker
So you have like Titanic rooms and Jurassic stuff.
00:25:09
Speaker
So that was that was that was interesting on that level.
00:25:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:13
Speaker
But I was basically using these rooms and after talking to a lot of people at bar, that was a fun way of doing field research.
00:25:22
Speaker
So tell me, do you go to love hotels?
00:25:25
Speaker
What's your feelings about those?
00:25:31
Speaker
uh is there is there like interior decorators that specialize in yeah really yeah and and i was curious because like there was a um a moral like moral guidelines that was coming down to say like these are illegal these are not appropriate and most of it was superior prepare for the 2020 olympics wow wow um interesting yeah
00:25:52
Speaker
And I kind of use those spaces to talk about the evolution or the development of women becoming more confident.
00:26:00
Speaker
And also that confidence is also like being finally permitted to pursue careers and also having agencies over their bodies.
00:26:09
Speaker
And what does that feel like for the first time you can explore your sexuality and your body?
00:26:15
Speaker
And Love Hotel was like the space as a metaphor.
00:26:18
Speaker
So I kind of use that to talk about
00:26:20
Speaker
um how the three generation of women in my family had related to their bodies and uh kind of weaving through the stories and using these rooms uh you brought that up as in contrast to the wish you were here project
00:26:38
Speaker
No, I was just saying the labor is different defined in this space.
00:26:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:43
Speaker
Say putting a care package together.
00:26:45
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:26:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:47
Speaker
I was trying to do a segue.
00:26:48
Speaker
No, no.
00:26:49
Speaker
I thought it was good.
00:26:50
Speaker
I was just interested.
00:26:51
Speaker
What the segue.
00:26:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:57
Speaker
I mean, I would, what do you have left?
00:26:59
Speaker
I have a couple things.
00:27:00
Speaker
Go ahead.
00:27:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:02
Speaker
Uh, on this?
00:27:04
Speaker
No.
00:27:04
Speaker
Oh, do you have more?
00:27:06
Speaker
No, I, you know what?
00:27:08
Speaker
It's I don't think I do.
00:27:14
Speaker
Okay.
00:27:14
Speaker
Well, if it comes to you, I wanted to ask about the train window piece that you made when
Art Inspired by Train Journeys
00:27:26
Speaker
we were at Bemis.
00:27:26
Speaker
And if anything, like what happened with that?
00:27:29
Speaker
I don't know where to display that.
00:27:33
Speaker
Okay, but it's a thing.
00:27:34
Speaker
It's a piece.
00:27:35
Speaker
It just hasn't really been displayed yet.
00:27:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:38
Speaker
And when I was thinking about threads between the work, that one reminded me of kind of like, I feel like time and duration are a huge part of your work, even if it's the duration of putting the care packages together and the video that you made for the Wish You Were Here.
00:27:58
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good observation.
00:28:01
Speaker
So anyways, would you just talk about the train piece a little bit?
00:28:04
Speaker
Because I thought it was so cool.
00:28:05
Speaker
Yeah, I did a residency where I just ride the train from anywhere in China.
00:28:13
Speaker
So I took the train from Moscow to Beijing.
00:28:16
Speaker
And at the time, it was 2017, they were also getting rid of a lot of the old Soviet trains that has a lot of character and charm, which I really love for the more high-speed ones.
00:28:29
Speaker
And there's just something about the bumping, the up and down of the tracks where you're laying down and seeing the landscape change very slowly.
00:28:40
Speaker
That is incredibly romantic and also kind of like the first invention where we have to have standardized time.
00:28:51
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:28:52
Speaker
so that with the perception of time in contrast of like a plane where you're in a magical box so you go up in the air you don't see nothing you you're and then you pop out and you're in a different place and there's that disconnect with the distance that you traveled um so with that piece i just stitched together all the different windows
00:29:14
Speaker
that I filmed along the train ride and put them together in like a four minute loop or something.
00:29:22
Speaker
So kind of collapsing like this giant distance of the old Silk Road route.
00:29:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:31
Speaker
And just visually, it was like really cool because you projected through these silk, like silk fabric that was hanging.
00:29:37
Speaker
So you like got double, like you got two windows and you were like inside the train.
00:29:43
Speaker
Totally.
00:29:44
Speaker
It was awesome.
00:29:45
Speaker
So I was just wondering if that had gotten exhibited anywhere else or if it was.
00:29:50
Speaker
No, I would like to.
00:29:52
Speaker
Yeah, it should happen.
00:29:53
Speaker
You're still looking for the home for that.
00:29:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:56
Speaker
I like that.
00:29:57
Speaker
I mean, it doesn't, right?
00:29:59
Speaker
Something will materialize at some point.
00:30:00
Speaker
Yes.
00:30:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:02
Speaker
Could take some time.
00:30:05
Speaker
You gotta let it gestate.
00:30:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:07
Speaker
Oh, wait, I had another thing about durational work, so like works that last a long time.
00:30:12
Speaker
Do you see a connection there with rest, with like allowing yourself the time to like watch a 15-minute video, like as a viewer, watch a 15-minute video of somebody kind of like assembling care packages?
00:30:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:26
Speaker
I feel like that's kind of a sort of rest, right, for a viewer?
00:30:29
Speaker
Definitely.
00:30:30
Speaker
Definitely.
00:30:31
Speaker
um and same with the 10 000 sunsets it's like this like really long duration i mean really long durational piece yeah um and so yeah i was wondering if you if you see that as connected to rest and self-care yeah um and i feel like it could be like the same attraction to people who like to watch stuff on youtube like popping bubbles and
00:30:57
Speaker
like those kind of soothing things that kind of really chill you out, but at the same time you're consuming the image of it.
00:31:06
Speaker
Yeah, there's like a slow TV.
00:31:09
Speaker
Yeah, exactly, exactly, yes.
00:31:12
Speaker
And I feel like that's like the antithesis of what capitalism wants us to do, which is to consume everything super quickly and eat everything as fast as we can and not spend time just being with a thing.
00:31:26
Speaker
Right.
00:31:27
Speaker
So anyways, I got those vibes from a lot of the work in general.
00:31:32
Speaker
Cool.
00:31:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:37
Speaker
And if Alex isn't going to jump in, I just want to talk about Lifetris, which I did not know.
00:31:43
Speaker
I've never seen this project, and I love it.
00:31:47
Speaker
Can you talk about Lifetris?
00:31:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's an arcade game, a two-person arcade game where it's a modified Tetris, and you only get one piece, and you're just screwed.
00:32:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:02
Speaker
So you either, you can get a square, you get the long row or you get the, the, the S shape.
00:32:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:09
Speaker
Then you're, um, that's life.
00:32:12
Speaker
I tried downloading the game, but I couldn't, it didn't work the download.
00:32:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:17
Speaker
But it's, but wasn't it also like you're playing against another person and they get better pieces?
00:32:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:24
Speaker
One person will always get better pieces than you.
00:32:27
Speaker
I mean, it's random, so maybe you'll get the same piece.
00:32:30
Speaker
Okay.
00:32:31
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:32:34
Speaker
I just thought it was such a simple, funny gesture.
00:32:37
Speaker
I mean, I'm sure the producing thing wasn't simple because it seems like a pretty involved project, but the idea of the game was really fun because I had never seen that.
00:32:46
Speaker
I didn't know you made that.
00:32:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:48
Speaker
I had drew like a comic and I'm like, can you make this?
00:32:55
Speaker
But I think it's like totally, it's totally in line with, you know, it's totally in line with labor and inequality and who starts from where.
00:33:04
Speaker
Exactly.
00:33:05
Speaker
And who gets what and resources and everything else.
00:33:09
Speaker
So I thought that was cool.
00:33:11
Speaker
Let's stop for one second.
00:33:12
Speaker
I have a couple questions about one of my favorite projects of yours.
00:33:16
Speaker
Okay, you can pause.
00:33:17
Speaker
Let me pause for a second.
00:33:20
Speaker
Oh, does anybody need more beer?
00:33:23
Speaker
I mean, I did just finish mine.
00:33:25
Speaker
All right, we're back from the mini break.
00:33:34
Speaker
So, I just want to, before I talk about
00:33:38
Speaker
Or before we end, I think I'd like to, I'd like, we'd like to end on sleeping with the devil.
00:33:43
Speaker
Okay.
00:33:44
Speaker
There's a lot to unpack there, I think.
00:33:49
Speaker
Two things.
00:33:50
Speaker
Collage.
00:33:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:52
Speaker
So back in art school.
00:33:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:54
Speaker
1.0 when you made physical pieces.
00:33:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:59
Speaker
Was it all collage based?
00:34:01
Speaker
Not all of it, but that was where I got really obsessed.
00:34:06
Speaker
Some of that work looked amazing, by the way.
00:34:08
Speaker
Just collecting things.
00:34:09
Speaker
I have amassed thousands.
00:34:13
Speaker
Maybe not thousands, but a lot of coloring books.
00:34:16
Speaker
A lot of ephemera.
00:34:18
Speaker
I can't say that word.
00:34:19
Speaker
Ephemera?
00:34:20
Speaker
Ephemera, yeah.
00:34:23
Speaker
Yeah, collaging is great.
00:34:24
Speaker
It's fun.
00:34:25
Speaker
That's how I think about a lot of my work.
00:34:27
Speaker
I was going to say, do you see a connection between collage and filmmaking?
00:34:30
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:34:30
Speaker
She does.
00:34:31
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:34:32
Speaker
Oh, is it in there?
00:34:34
Speaker
In one of the interviews I saw her talk about it.
00:34:36
Speaker
Oh, you really did your homework.
00:34:37
Speaker
I'm a little embarrassed.
00:34:41
Speaker
This is actually what everyone says that is on the podcast.
00:34:45
Speaker
They tell Alex that he did a lot of research or really did his homework.
00:34:49
Speaker
I did.
00:34:50
Speaker
I ate and slept.
00:34:51
Speaker
okay your work but no it was great and you said that filmmaking allowed you to to have that collage yeah component where you can kind of put disparaging and that leads me to my favorite one of my favorite pieces is the is between yeah oh thanks because it it does that so well yeah and i don't know if you've seen the piece it's like oh i watched it right before you guys came over
00:35:15
Speaker
And it's got two different screens and images and then you have fictitious or words with fictitious definitions?
00:35:22
Speaker
Yeah, fictitious definitions that I wish for words that exist.
00:35:29
Speaker
And then just slides of...
00:35:32
Speaker
uh random images i found like flea market or ebay 35 millimeter slides it has two um projectors that project randomly okay projectors or the the ones with the slide carousels because i heard the clicking i love that sound absolutely i remember i think
00:35:54
Speaker
Back when I was applying to grad school the first time, you would send in the carousel.
00:35:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:36:02
Speaker
And it was just fun to see the pairings and it would make sense, but only because we're the ones who's making sense of it.
00:36:11
Speaker
But isn't that the human condition?
00:36:12
Speaker
Exactly.
00:36:14
Speaker
You want to make sense of whatever it is that comes before or after.
00:36:18
Speaker
You have to try to make sense of it, right?
00:36:23
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:36:24
Speaker
Like we're narrative machines.
00:36:27
Speaker
So how does that factor into like, so when you work now, like I'm imagining with like the, like the trip you took in Asia.
Material Collection and Art Creation
00:36:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:40
Speaker
It's like a lot of disparaging images that are kind of like, right.
00:36:43
Speaker
True.
00:36:44
Speaker
Don't necessarily, they might not be from the same exact time.
00:36:47
Speaker
Right.
00:36:48
Speaker
And then you're just pairing them and then you're allowing a third thing to occur.
00:36:52
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:36:53
Speaker
So that's like the role of an artist and my own practice.
00:36:56
Speaker
Like that's the fun part.
00:36:57
Speaker
Like I don't have a perceived thing when I go into something.
00:37:01
Speaker
I just collect as much material as possible.
00:37:05
Speaker
And then through combining it in different ways and then something will emerge from it.
00:37:12
Speaker
And it kind of seemed like in the between project, the exercise was just in kind of like smashing things together and seeing what happened.
00:37:20
Speaker
Right.
00:37:22
Speaker
And that does seem like a basis for a lot of future work where it's like doing that, but also doing it with intention for like a specific topic.
00:37:31
Speaker
Right.
00:37:31
Speaker
Or a specific idea.
00:37:32
Speaker
That's a good way of putting it.
00:37:34
Speaker
Which I don't even think I recognize that until I just said it right now, but that totally, that makes sense, right?
00:37:41
Speaker
You should pat yourself on the bed.
00:37:43
Speaker
There we go.
00:37:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:47
Speaker
I also, I remember when we met, you described yourself as an experimental documentary filmmaker.
00:37:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:53
Speaker
Is that still true?
00:37:55
Speaker
Well, I know it's so hard to make a documentary film.
00:38:01
Speaker
It's more grant writing and more networking than I thought it would be.
00:38:08
Speaker
That I kind of, well, it's like, geez.
00:38:13
Speaker
I don't know.
00:38:14
Speaker
So I started out doing personal stuff and I wanted to move away from it.
00:38:18
Speaker
But then the more I tried to move away from it, I feel like the best thing for me to do ethically is go back to doing personal work in a way that I could at least account for my own subjectivity and the manipulation of the work.
00:38:35
Speaker
Because the thing that documentary that is complex and attracted me to it is that it's rooted as a tool for colonialism.
00:38:45
Speaker
And it was always presented as an objective view of describing others.
00:38:53
Speaker
And I was interested in like, okay, so what if the others speak back and the others kind of tell their own story?
00:39:01
Speaker
But if I'm the other...
00:39:03
Speaker
What does it mean to be another person of color who is describing another, a community code that's not yours?
00:39:09
Speaker
What are the boundaries there?
00:39:12
Speaker
So you found the inherent flaws in documentary.
00:39:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:19
Speaker
I mean, I think people just spell it out.
00:39:21
Speaker
It's as subjective as all hell.
00:39:23
Speaker
Yeah, it is.
00:39:24
Speaker
The best documentaries are very upfront about it, right?
00:39:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:26
Speaker
Right.
00:39:27
Speaker
I mean, that's all they can do.
00:39:28
Speaker
Right.
00:39:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:29
Speaker
Because there's no way to remove yourself from it.
00:39:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:32
Speaker
And there are things I would like to work on, but until the opportunity and the resources come to pass, then I can't really do anything until then.
00:39:41
Speaker
So...
00:39:43
Speaker
I'm kind of maybe staying away from saying that I'm a documentary filmmaker considering the long gap of TV in my filmmaking career.
00:39:53
Speaker
Also, the nice thing about being an artist, overarching artist, is you can make documentary films and a bunch of other stuff, but if you're just a documentary filmmaker, you can't really make art.
00:40:04
Speaker
yeah i mean like in the categories yeah yeah yeah i'm okay what do you see the the is the timer is ticking like how many how much time between every film like is there a is that pressure it's pressure from the industry for sure in terms of getting the grants building your connections and um having the distribution all of that seems it's just too much for me right now
00:40:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:31
Speaker
And it requires so much money.
00:40:33
Speaker
It's crazy.
00:40:34
Speaker
You have to bloat your budget.
00:40:35
Speaker
Like say I can make my film for 50K or even 20K or even 10.
00:40:40
Speaker
But I did bloat it up to at least a 300K for it to look legit.
00:40:47
Speaker
and to like overpay a bunch of people or like marketing costs or whatever for her to even get like the sound engineer to do the thing yeah it's crazy just even to get the funding gotcha um so this whole industry is it's like there's it's just so much flaws in it that um yeah
00:41:06
Speaker
perhaps NFT could come in and help.
00:41:08
Speaker
Oh, you know what I was going to mention earlier was Stoner Cats, which was supposedly the first NFT TV show.
00:41:16
Speaker
It was Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher's show.
00:41:19
Speaker
But part of it was that the buyers got to control the narrative a little bit, which I assume you probably wouldn't want to do for a documentary film.
00:41:28
Speaker
You don't want to do a choose-your-own-adventure documentary film?
00:41:31
Speaker
I mean, it'd be interesting.
00:41:32
Speaker
No, if it's like a Wolfgang thing where someone wants to buy, like, oh, buy me some Alaskan king crabs and I'll eat it for that show.
00:41:40
Speaker
Could you imagine?
00:41:42
Speaker
Well, could you imagine?
00:41:43
Speaker
That would be a documentary.
00:41:44
Speaker
It's nonfiction.
00:41:45
Speaker
I'm eating it.
00:41:47
Speaker
The episode's released and then the people that have a stake in the thing decide what the next episode's going to be.
00:41:51
Speaker
Exactly.
00:41:52
Speaker
That's crazy.
00:41:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:53
Speaker
I mean, but it's a possibility.
00:41:54
Speaker
It is a possibility.
00:41:56
Speaker
So if anyone interested in buying me food and watching me eat it, I'm totally down.
00:42:03
Speaker
So I guess that's a good segue to go into your film.
00:42:07
Speaker
Wait, I got one more before.
00:42:09
Speaker
Oh, sure.
00:42:10
Speaker
It's about the Billboard Project.
00:42:13
Speaker
Okay.
00:42:14
Speaker
And it's an overarching question about trying to pay yourself while also doing good work or fighting the good fighter, trying to dismantle...
00:42:26
Speaker
capitalism and racism and everything else.
00:42:28
Speaker
Right.
00:42:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:29
Speaker
And so for, for this project, we had talked about like how to be transparent about where the money's going.
00:42:38
Speaker
Right.
00:42:38
Speaker
And so I guess I'm interested in like, in general, how do you feel about like trying to pay yourself while also doing quote unquote activist work, uh, because labor should be paid for, but also, um, in specifically with like this billboard project, what you're thinking about doing.
00:42:54
Speaker
yeah labor should definitely be paid i think this whole thing that we're convinced that if this especially in doing non-profit work uh like they're banking on you're doing it for the passion they're doing it for the care and then you get exploited for that um it i'm definitely pro getting paid for the labor but not in like not like exuberant amount
00:43:22
Speaker
But like an honest wage for what you should be paying.
00:43:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:26
Speaker
You just want to get to the point where you can rest.
00:43:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:29
Speaker
Enough money that you can afford.
00:43:31
Speaker
You can afford to rest.
Fair Compensation in Activism
00:43:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:34
Speaker
And it's interesting too because like the not exuberant is this amorphous amount that is kind of set by the market a little bit.
00:43:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:43
Speaker
And like but you want to get paid on the higher end of that because...
00:43:48
Speaker
the market actually tries to underpay everybody.
00:43:50
Speaker
Constantly.
00:43:52
Speaker
But so then it looks like maybe you're making a lot of money compared to somebody who maybe works at the grocery store or whatever else.
00:43:58
Speaker
And then it's like this other thing where, I don't know, I'm just, you know, I think it's a really interesting and complex space.
00:44:05
Speaker
And so I really liked that you were talking about when you mint the NFT, being very transparent about what percentage of the money goes where.
00:44:13
Speaker
Because I think transparency can be one of those things that makes it better.
00:44:17
Speaker
Definitely.
00:44:19
Speaker
And I think a lot of the projects and galleries that I really like are pretty transparent about their budgets or try to be transparent about their budgets.
00:44:28
Speaker
I think that's a really nice model.
00:44:30
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:44:32
Speaker
That was the focus of our last show or our show that's up now, but this should probably be later.
00:44:39
Speaker
The radical transparency, like utilizing it as a, as a, as a, as a force where you can kind of like show, you can show others that you can do things in a manner that are either not destructive or helpful or whatever it be, but be transparent about it and not hide anything.
00:44:58
Speaker
Which is kind of one of, I mean, for this next show, you know, it's all on the blockchain.
00:45:05
Speaker
And so this is for the first time that we're acting as kind of gallerists who are going to take a cut and it's 15%.
00:45:12
Speaker
And that's all going to be recorded so people can see whether or not that's true, that we're really doing that.
00:45:18
Speaker
They can watch the transactions.
00:45:20
Speaker
They can watch the wallets, which I think is great for everyone.
00:45:24
Speaker
That's what I love about the crypto space.
00:45:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:27
Speaker
For better or worse.
00:45:28
Speaker
For better or worse.
00:45:31
Speaker
Yes.
00:45:33
Speaker
Okay, now you can talk about the last thing you wanted to talk about.
00:45:38
Speaker
Sleeping with the devil.
00:45:39
Speaker
Okay, let's do it.
00:45:41
Speaker
Go ahead.
00:45:42
Speaker
So this came out of...
Personal Story of Exorcisms
00:45:47
Speaker
Partially grew up in a cult-like religion and this mostly happened when I was living with my mom in high school where it was really heightened and it really played in with her paranoia.
00:46:03
Speaker
So she thought I was possessed and subsequently would take me to so many exorcists, like at least a dozen.
00:46:14
Speaker
Each one a different person?
00:46:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's different.
00:46:17
Speaker
There will be a different person in town and she'd get really excited.
00:46:20
Speaker
It's like, oh, we have a new prophet, exorcist, faith, healer, whatever.
00:46:23
Speaker
Do you need a certificate to be an exorcist?
00:46:25
Speaker
You just have to be anointed by yourself.
00:46:28
Speaker
It's amazing.
00:46:28
Speaker
It's just like anyone.
00:46:30
Speaker
Yeah, and they all have different skills.
00:46:32
Speaker
My favorite one is a woman who lives in the mountain and she can smell different ghosts and demons off of you.
00:46:43
Speaker
So this session will go like she's just like...
00:46:47
Speaker
smelling all over your body and be like, there is a curse of alcoholism.
00:46:52
Speaker
And you're like, okay.
00:47:01
Speaker
Maybe.
00:47:02
Speaker
Where it comes to problem is when she was like, okay, well, you know, Elisa needs her exorcism, so we're just not going to eat well this month so we can save money because her soul is in jeopardy.
00:47:17
Speaker
That's bad.
00:47:18
Speaker
Wow.
00:47:19
Speaker
Or it's like instead of going to the doctor, which a lot of members of the church I belong to, they would, instead of going to the doctor, they would go to a Benny Hinn ministry and spend $5,000 so they could get prayed for.
00:47:31
Speaker
And these things are really expensive and they're very shame-based.
00:47:36
Speaker
um and this is not to say like all of these faith healers are on the same level but this is mostly like this uh very profit like money profit driven industry that prey on vulnerable people who don't have access to the help that they need wow i mean having watched the video i mean first of all is this the most open you've ever been about yourself as far as like
00:48:01
Speaker
At the time, in terms of like some of the content as direct, yes.
Exorcisms and Exploiting Vulnerabilities
00:48:09
Speaker
And it was so like the structure of this type of exorcism for especially for Bob Larson is like a very bad therapy session where he basically asks, what are the worst things in your life?
00:48:23
Speaker
And he will try to help you from that, those traumas.
00:48:29
Speaker
But what he really honed in on wasn't the things that were the worst that I thought were the worst thing in my life.
00:48:36
Speaker
He honed in on my sexual history.
00:48:39
Speaker
And that was a thread I noticed to her is like in his, um,
00:48:45
Speaker
like the exorcist shows on youtube and on it's also on i think it was on hulu for a bit when it comes to women that way he oh he would always like gears toward that um like oh yeah most of the women who come to me are most most of them have a history of sexual abuse and or childhood sexual abuse and and and that's where he finds where my fault is
00:49:13
Speaker
Your fault.
00:49:13
Speaker
Yeah, my fault.
00:49:14
Speaker
Not the perpetrator.
00:49:16
Speaker
And at the time, like, I wanted to come in very honestly so I could show how these people take advantage of your vulnerability.
00:49:27
Speaker
And that was a hard thing for me to do.
00:49:29
Speaker
So I'm like, okay, like I was like struggling, like kind of like, okay, I'm queer, but I always been able to hide one side of myself by, because I could always just date dudes.
00:49:43
Speaker
Um, and that was the thing that I was kind of trying to come to terms with.
00:49:47
Speaker
And that was like telling him that, and I know he's going to take that terribly, which he did, but that's the point.
00:49:55
Speaker
And this happened before Me Too kind of took off and went mainstream.
00:50:01
Speaker
So I recorded in 2015 and all the feedback then was very jarring.
00:50:10
Speaker
There were a few feminist scholars who I looked up to and even artists and they were like, so if you come out with a saying that you were raped, this is all you'll ever be.
00:50:20
Speaker
You'll be categorized as a rape artist.
00:50:22
Speaker
Do you want that?
00:50:24
Speaker
Or it's like, this is so niche, like who's going to care about this?
00:50:29
Speaker
So there was a lot of pushback that I think really, like I'm still a bit traumatized from it because there's always someone in the audience who goes, did you fake your story so you can frame this dude?
00:50:43
Speaker
And but after like 2017 and 2018, like I don't get that anymore.
00:50:48
Speaker
Okay.
00:50:48
Speaker
It's like, oh, like, oh, you're so brave.
00:50:50
Speaker
Like, oh, or like it's hilarious.
00:50:52
Speaker
So it's very interesting to see how much it has changed.
00:50:56
Speaker
Wow.
00:50:57
Speaker
Even in the span of like that six, seven years.
00:51:00
Speaker
That's crazy.
00:51:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:03
Speaker
It also just like speaks to the fact that people that like women needed to come forward with those stories for for the conversation to change.
00:51:12
Speaker
Right.
00:51:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:12
Speaker
Like for the reaction to change, for the sentiment to change.
00:51:15
Speaker
Exactly.
00:51:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:16
Speaker
Yeah, and then at first it was also the novelty of having over Skype.
00:51:20
Speaker
That was odd.
00:51:21
Speaker
How do you have this exorcism that is very supposedly spiritual and how are you going to cast a demon through my webcam?
00:51:32
Speaker
Was he opening a bottle of holy water?
00:51:34
Speaker
Yeah, holy water.
00:51:35
Speaker
Where's it going to go?
00:51:36
Speaker
Was it digital?
00:51:38
Speaker
He splashes it on the camera, I think.
00:51:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:39
Speaker
Was it...
00:51:43
Speaker
he did um it was 299 you know that's a lot of money for everyone at one point when you say in the in the in the film that you didn't believe in god yeah i felt like that's when he shut shut down like of all the things yeah yeah
00:52:03
Speaker
Um, well, cause what do you do with that as a, as a exorcist?
00:52:07
Speaker
If your person doesn't even buy into the thing that you're doing?
00:52:11
Speaker
I, I've read something recently about clergy in England.
00:52:17
Speaker
Um,
00:52:19
Speaker
that 33% of them, of the clergy, did not believe in God.
00:52:23
Speaker
What?
00:52:24
Speaker
33?
00:52:24
Speaker
Catholicism?
00:52:25
Speaker
No, this is, no.
00:52:28
Speaker
This is white Anglo-Saxon Protestant.
00:52:30
Speaker
Protestant.
00:52:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:31
Speaker
Okay.
00:52:32
Speaker
So Protestant clergy who can get married, they don't have to do the thing where they're not married.
00:52:36
Speaker
But they, a third of them did not believe in God.
00:52:39
Speaker
And asked, why do you, they're like, I like what I do.
00:52:44
Speaker
And they like the community and they like to help.
00:52:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:46
Speaker
So, anyway.
00:52:50
Speaker
I remember beginning this session I told him too, look, I don't believe in God.
00:52:54
Speaker
Oh, so you started that way.
00:52:56
Speaker
No, I did because the whole point of this is my mom wants me to go back to church.
00:53:01
Speaker
She wants me to believe in God again.
00:53:03
Speaker
So I'm like, okay, I'll do this for her.
00:53:05
Speaker
Let's see where this goes.
00:53:07
Speaker
This was amazing work.
00:53:09
Speaker
Thank you.
00:53:11
Speaker
I know that I saw an interview with you talking about the reaction of the Ann Arbor people.
00:53:15
Speaker
Oh, my God.
00:53:16
Speaker
They were laughing.
00:53:17
Speaker
That was awesome.
00:53:19
Speaker
It was the best.
00:53:20
Speaker
I still think that film particularly is best watched with an audience.
00:53:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:26
Speaker
For sure.
00:53:27
Speaker
Yeah, I would love to see it in a theater.
00:53:29
Speaker
Isn't that fun watching it by yourself?
00:53:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:31
Speaker
I mean, I saw it with like 12 people or whatever, and it was very fun.
00:53:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:37
Speaker
But it would be fun to see like a full audience theater.
00:53:40
Speaker
Totally.
00:53:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:41
Speaker
Well, it seems to encapsulate everything.
00:53:46
Speaker
collage collage other yeah um people that are doing these exorcisms with the footage that you're doing with the thing um it just seems that it seems to be like at the crux of everything you kind of like do because you're you're injecting you said at some point um the intersection of personal narrative feminism and anthropology yeah which i thought was great yeah thanks
00:54:11
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:54:11
Speaker
It definitely hit those those things.
00:54:14
Speaker
I think that's probably for artists is probably one of the hardest things to do.
00:54:19
Speaker
Like when you kind of like allow yourself to inject yourself.
00:54:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:23
Speaker
It's unfortunate because when you're when you're specific to yourself is when you're most universal.
00:54:32
Speaker
It's when more people can kind of like grasp onto the thing and say, oh, that's me or that's my uncle or that's a situation I recognize.
00:54:40
Speaker
Right.
00:54:41
Speaker
It's hard to, it's like when you're trying to be more vague and a little bit more open is when you're a little bit more insular.
00:54:48
Speaker
That's true.
00:54:49
Speaker
It's like the opposite.
00:54:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:50
Speaker
And I think that project kind of like.
00:54:53
Speaker
That's a good observation and take.
00:54:56
Speaker
Totally.
00:54:57
Speaker
I was also really excited about using the same medium that is so specific to America with televangelism.
Televangelism, Technology, and Control
00:55:06
Speaker
So I incorporated footage from the first dude who did it, Oral Roberts, who used to do this under revival tents.
00:55:13
Speaker
He was the first one who did it on TV.
00:55:16
Speaker
And through there, like...
00:55:18
Speaker
the progression of Skype.
00:55:22
Speaker
And it's kind of like how porn would always be the first to use new technology.
00:55:28
Speaker
So I'm just waiting for the next NFT exorcism and I will be there.
00:55:36
Speaker
anthropologically this is also really interesting how long was that session with him one hour it was brutal um dang it was brutal because he was so mean and those are not things that i was unfamiliar with but it took me at least another year before i could actually sit through the footage
00:55:55
Speaker
But also a nice way to take agency back, right?
00:55:59
Speaker
To take the thing.
00:56:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:02
Speaker
For sure.
00:56:02
Speaker
That's the other thing.
00:56:03
Speaker
It's like, this is your story and you can do what you want with that particular story.
00:56:08
Speaker
Exactly.
00:56:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:10
Speaker
I mean, he's mansplaining the page.
00:56:12
Speaker
I mean, not only do you have the...
00:56:16
Speaker
christianity and the patriarchy that comes with it right he's also mansplaining to you what you're what the ailments that are right whatever right and he's focusing on this one thing and you're like um how about the other things exactly no it's it's bad um yeah
00:56:34
Speaker
I don't have anything else, I think.
00:56:36
Speaker
I think that we're learning how to have arcs in our podcast.
00:56:42
Speaker
This was like a nice, we did like a good opening in middle closing, maybe.
00:56:47
Speaker
I don't know.
00:56:48
Speaker
You think?
00:56:48
Speaker
I guess we'll see.
00:56:49
Speaker
I don't know.
00:56:50
Speaker
I mean, if you don't stay to the end, you're going to miss out on some good stuff.
00:56:53
Speaker
Right.
00:56:53
Speaker
Totally.
00:56:54
Speaker
Totally.
00:56:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:55
Speaker
That's the idea, right?
00:56:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:58
Speaker
Elisa, thank you so much.
00:57:00
Speaker
Thank you.
00:57:01
Speaker
Thanks for having me.
00:57:04
Speaker
And any, I don't know, any like pitches at the end?
00:57:08
Speaker
Oh, what are you working on?
00:57:09
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:57:10
Speaker
What are you working on?
00:57:10
Speaker
Sorry.
00:57:11
Speaker
Oh, my God.
00:57:12
Speaker
Sorry.
00:57:13
Speaker
Like nothing.
00:57:14
Speaker
Yeah, billboard.
00:57:17
Speaker
So you're working on nothing intentionally.
00:57:21
Speaker
I have a feeling you have a bunch of dormant projects just kind of like laying around.
00:57:25
Speaker
There are things in the works that are just really, really tiny chunks that I could chip off right now.
00:57:31
Speaker
That's good.
00:57:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:32
Speaker
I do want to do like a part two to please come again, but it may not be a film or may not, or maybe something else.
00:57:39
Speaker
Cool.
00:57:40
Speaker
Cool.
00:57:43
Speaker
Awesome.
00:57:44
Speaker
All right.
00:57:46
Speaker
Okay.
00:57:46
Speaker
Thank you so much.
00:57:47
Speaker
Thank you.
00:57:47
Speaker
That was great.
00:57:55
Speaker
Arranging Tangerines is recorded, edited, and produced by Lydian Stater, a New York City-based crypto fine art platform focused on the emerging NFT market.
00:58:04
Speaker
You can learn more at lydianstater.co, find images at lydianstaternyc on Instagram, and follow us at lydianstater on Twitter.
00:58:11
Speaker
Many thanks to Elisa for taking the time out to speak this week.
00:58:14
Speaker
You can check out more of Elisa Yang's work at elisayang.com.
00:58:18
Speaker
Big thanks to Talwan, who graciously provides our intro music.
00:58:22
Speaker
His albums are available at talwan.bandcamp.com.
00:58:26
Speaker
And thank you to you, listener, for spending your valuable time with us.
00:58:29
Speaker
I don't know what to do.
00:58:32
Speaker
I don't know what to say.
00:58:34
Speaker
I just know I don't want to be like you.
00:58:37
Speaker
I don't know what to do.
00:58:39
Speaker
I don't know what to say.
00:58:41
Speaker
I just know I don't want to be like you.
00:58:47
Speaker
Oh, no.